VIJAYAWADA:
The secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Bandaru Dattatreya, on Monday asked the Government to scrap the Endowments Department and set up a "Dharmachara Parishad," instead, with the heads of all Hindu religious institutions as its members. The Parishad would take care of all temples and their assets in the State, he said.

Addressing a press conference here, Mr. Dattatreya welcomed the resignation of the Minister for Sports, M. Satyanarayana Rao, from the Cabinet. He said that the Government must bring the Chief Minister and other leaders under the purview of the judicial inquiry into the endowments lands scam.

He pooh-poohed the observations of the president of the APCC, K. Keshava Rao, that the report submitted by the Anti-Corruption Bureau to the Government had no specific mention about the involvement of political leaders in the lands scam.